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American Morning

More Strife and Loss of Life in Middle East

Aired March 28, 2002 - 07:02   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Up front this morning, more strife and loss of life in the Middle East. Today, Israeli and army commanders are talking over their response to the Passover massacre. The latest Palestinian suicide bombing, the toll is shocking; 20 Israelis and the suicide bomber dead, hundreds more hurt. The destruction is equally shocking.

CNN's John Vause joins us live from the scene in Netanya, Israel -- good morning, John.

JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula. Well, we are in the parking lot outside the hotel, where the blast happened last night around 7:15 local time at the hotel. That's where the full extent of the blast happened on the west end (ph) and down in the banquet room.

Inside that banquet room at the time, more than 200 people, most of them elderly. And one of the first people on the scene was a paramedic, Noam Igra. He joins us now.

Noam, when you first arrived, what did you see? What were your impressions?

NOAM IGRA, PARAMEDIC: It was chaotic. It was literally a bloodshed. You walked in and there were -- or we ran in, there were bodies pretty much everywhere. It was on the holy day, so we were all on our way to our families to have the equivalent of the Thanksgiving meal for North Americans. And we got the call over the radio. We came in within minutes, and it was just overwhelming.

HOLMES: You told me earlier you were at home, you heard the blast.

IGRA: Yes. I live a couple of streets away from here, and I heard what I thought initially was thunder, and I thought to myself just please God, don't let it be another explosion here. Then the radio started transmitting everything that was going on, and we got it on pager, and myself, just like dozens of others, sprang into action, just came here immediately.

HOLMES: You came in and you told me there was a lot of water on the floor. Is that right? That it was very difficult inside. It was dark. There was a lot of water. IGRA: It was dark. The weather here wasn't very good last night either. There was water about an inch or two deep. There were open electrical lines all over the place, and it was both difficult as well as dangerous to go in. We were also told by the police that there might be another bomber outside as well as another bomb inside, which made it very difficult for us to make our way through to all of the casualties.

HOLMES: Tell me about the wounded. What sort of injuries did they suffer?

IGRA: Well, the bomb was probably -- as usual, it had a lot of bolts and screws inside, and there were a lot of entrance wounds. There were a lot of blast injuries. Unlike other bombings I was at, the people here, the ones who were killed, were pretty much intact, which was even more difficult to see because they seemed pretty much OK. You could see people dead, as I said, elderly mostly, but there were also children there. It was just horrible.

HOLMES: It was silent, you said. Is that right? There was no one screaming. There were no calls for help.

IGRA: Well, initially those who could walk and who could obviously scream made their way out. As I came in, I still saw people running out, but it was dead -- literally dead silence inside. Those who were laying all over the place were not able to call out for help, and there were a lot of critically injured people there.

HOLMES: What of the smell inside? What was that like?

IGRA: It is something you never forget. The combination of gun powder, as well as flesh, and it's a smell I have heard from many people in our line of work that it's something that never leaves you. It's just overwhelming.

HOLMES: Now, the injuries you had to treat, the severity of those injuries, and you tell me that there are 20 people still in a critical condition. Why is that?

IGRA: Well, the fact that it was inside a closed banquet hall compounded the explosion, which to begin with was a very large one, even in Israeli terms. The blast became considerably more detrimental to those who were inside, which can account for the amount of people who were very seriously wounded and for those who died, for the amount of people who died, which is a lot in Israeli terms.

HOLMES: Noam, thank you very much for your time -- Noam Igra, a paramedic here in Netanya, Paula, one of the first people on the scene.

ZAHN: John, what is known about the suicide bomber today?

HOLMES: What we are being told by authorities is, in fact, he is a 25-year-old Palestinian man. He approached the hotel. He was well dressed. He was carrying a suitcase. He walked into the hotel. He is a former hotel worker. He walked through the reception area, and then ran into that banquet room and detonated a suicide belt around him. He used the wires, we are told. Traditionally that's what sets off the charge, which then sets off the explosion -- Paula.

ZAHN: So clearly, there were people who recognized him then as he walked into the lobby of the hotel.

HOLMES: That's what is being investigated by authorities right now. What we are being told is that he walked past security and then ran into the banquet room. One woman, which I spoke to here who was one of the people serving drinks and looking out to the reception, she said that he actually asked the head waiter for a Coke, and no one suspected him of actually being a suicide bomber.

ZAHN: All right. John Vause, thank you very much for that update.

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